The Biggest Things
by qongo
Summary: Post MJ/Pre-Ep Katniss and Peeta are living as happily as can be expected in their new life. However, a few periods of discontent on Katniss's part convince her there is no choice but to take a step back for awhile. Peeta is not quite as convinced, and doesn't go down without a fight. -Rating could change, r&r please!


Gale had this quote. It was from some old book from the Dark Days that he had found once in some old library. I didn't understand it, hell I'm not even sure _he _really understood it.

The only thing that mattered to Gale was that it justified every rebellious outburst he'd ever had, specifically once the Rebellion was in progress.

"The biggest things always begin as the smallest."

I had always thought this was a ridiculous notion. I mean, it took 75 years of Hunger Games for someone to start a rebellion. I don't call that starting small; the build-up to it was three-quarters of a century in the making. There was no "starting small" to Peeta's hijacking; according to his best memory, he was in captivity a whopping three hours before they began their "treatments."

And then, slowly, over the last few weeks, I had started to see his perspective. Things were going extremely well here in 12, don't get me wrong. We were adhering to Aurelius's "routines" suggestion. I hunted everyday, Peeta baked everyday, Haymitch was drunk everyday, and somehow all of that fell together into an extremely functional life.

And even more so than functional: satisfying. Not perfect, but content. I think Peeta and I qualified as 'dating' at this point, though the term seemed beyond comical given our situation. But we were happy, with or without a label.

It wasn't always perfect. I still found myself pinned beneath Peeta's rage occasionally, who would soon find _him_self pinned beneath my soothing mantras and reassurances that no demon he saw was truly terrorizing him in reality. These times still came, as did my own 'episodes,' but they were becoming less and less, and that was all we needed to feel optimistic and confident for the life we could build. _Together._

But I have never been good at contentedness. Peeta, Peeta would be content in a brown hut with nothing but me and oven and zero flashbacks for the rest of his life. It was difficult for him to understand my lingering feelings of guilt and regret about the war and all its preceding and succeeding events.

Not that Peeta didn't feel his own bitter regret sneak upon him from time to time, but that he never gave it the power to control his personality or his perspective on his "second chance," as he called it.

We would have long spells of good days. When we parted in the daytime for our respective interests, met at home for a calm, reflective meal and proceeded to spend the rest of the night talking or not, simply enjoying one another's company. Until it was time for bed, when we still knew that the other's company was there for the taking, and let that security guide us through many a turbulent night.

But then we, mainly _I, _if we're being honest, could also endure substantial spells of disquieted days. I would wake up on edge. Unsatisfied with the life I was leading that so many others never would. Unsatisfied with the struggles we still faced just in attempting a normal life. Unsatisfied with the people around me and their perceived lack of understanding for my own personal problems.

Of course, there weren't a lot of people around to take the fall for my restless days, which unfortunately meant most of my wrath and harsh outbursts fell upon the one person who deserved my cruelty the least: Peeta.

It came in the evenings he would stomp just a little too loudly with his prosthetic into the living room, smiling, with tray in hand, hot chocolate for the both of us in grasp. Some combination of that unfaltering smile and the relentlessly heavy tread would bring an audibly irritated sigh from my lips, a sound that would hault him in his tracks and eventually send him quietly backtracking into the kitchen, the hurt and confusion clear in his eyes.

It came in the conversations when I became so desperate for that optimistic smile to leave his face that I did the only thing I knew for sure would do so: lashed out, hitting where it hurt the most. Days when I refused to get out of bed and he persisted were the worst. I don't know why he _did _persist; he had to know the hurt I would never cease to cause him.

_ "Katniss, please. It's nearly dinner-time, and you haven't even gotten out of bed, let alone had breakfast or lunch." He stood, pleading, in the entryway to our room, still adorned in his flour-covered apron, having just hurried home during a dry spell at the bakery to check on me._

_ "I'm really not hungry, Peeta," I replied, as laced with irritation as a sentence could be."_

_ "You don't have to hungry to get out of bed, Katniss," he replied, that same Goddamn smile just barely gracing his lips. I couldn't take him anymore._

_ "I don't see what you have to smiling about," I accused, "At least I still have family, you just have some fucked-up girlfriend and a bakery. Congratulations," I snarled at him. I closed my eyes after this little outburst, both tired from it and terrified to see the pain I had surely registered in those beautiful blue eyes._

_ After no movement, I opened them a moment later, to see Peeta simply staring at me from his exact same position in the entryway. His eyes held all the pain I thought they would, with a heavy dose of a particularly potent brand of pity and contemplation that he only reserved for when, I believe, he truly didn't know me._

_ That same uneven and quietly defeated gait announced his departure from the room and the house._

Occurrences like this would plague me for weeks at a time, before suddenly I felt none of the persisting irritation I had for so long, and we would fall back to our steady routine, with no mention on Peeta's part of the Hell I put him through on a regular basis. He would go back to dutifully cooking dinner every day, kissing me gently on the forhead when I walked in the room. It was like I _didn't _consistently break his heart for nearly month-long periods at a time.

I always remembered, though. The look on his face in those moments was an image that never escaped me. It lingered long after it likely did for him, and had begun to diminish the happy spells of our relationship.

_ What is he doing with me? Why do I do this to him? What else is out there for him and me? Is there a chance at something better for either of us?_

These are the questions that played relentlessly through my mind until one day I simply couldn't take them any longer. Peeta had been at work for what seemed like a gruelingly long day, which had likely been only three or four hours yet.

So I packed. I pulled out the suitcase and duffel from the attic, realizing I had not used either since the Victory Tour.

My mother had done this once before. In the days before my father died, she had had a particularly tiresome few weeks with the three of us, and decided to pack. I had found the evidence of this the following morning, and could not stop the surge of betrayal and abandonment I felt.

She had laughed it off, reassuring me it was just an old trick she had learned for reclaiming what was important in life. _The things you pack first are the things that will make you stay, _she insisted. She continued merrily unpacking, by all accounts once again content in her life.

I figured worst case scenario, I had a lot of unpacking to do.

But as the day wore on, and I continued strategically packing and organizing all of my remaining belongings into the two bags, the gravity of what I was still feeling hit me. _I think I'm really leaving, _I thought. The people and places my possessions brought to mind convinced me there _were _things out there, for both of us, things we had never imagined, let alone given a decent chance.

Johanna was still around. So was Annie. And Beetee. And my mother. And yes, at some point, I would probably make an attempt to retry a friendship with Gale. I would be leaving that out of my explanation to Peeta. And surely relatives and friends of Peeta's parents existed somewhere, if we only gave them the possibility to help us.

It wasn't that I was altogether unhappy with this particular life, I just could not help feeling that the dissatisfaction I sometimes felt with it could be cured with an "extended packing," so to speak, with a similar philosophy to my mother's. Once we had _both _(this word was going to be imperative to convincing I was not _leaving him, _I was suggesting a _break, _for _both _of us) seen what else the remnants and the rebirth of our nation had to offer, surely we could be better people for it, and thus better in the life we both deserved _together. _

I had just shaken off this silent soliloquy and wandered into the bathroom for some basic toiletries.

I had though the looks Peeta wore after one my outbursts were hard to take. The look on his face as he took in our bedroom, devoid of all of my effects, and my two stuffed pieces of luggage, was one that sent chills up my spine and one that would surely not escape me for the rest of my life.

This torture was made even worse by the forgotten, white bakery box in his hand, surely containing some treat of his, made personally with a smile and me in mind.

We made eye contact, as his jaw gaped and his eyes held every insecurity and every question that had likely ever graced his mind. Though he tried to conceal it, his bottom lip had already begun to quake, as had his hands, a unique sign of his distress I found especially gut-wrenching.

He tilted his head slightly to the side, silently imploring me to reassure him this was not what it seemed. As he realized I could not do so, his head and fell and three broken words came whispered from his lips.

"You're leaving me?"


End file.
